“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” ~ Tuesdays with Morrie
A parent’s love doesn’t end simply because a child leaves this earth.
The relationship is not over as long as a bereaved parent’s heart beats.
Read the rest here: “Death Ends a Life, Not a Relationship”
It’s been years (decades?) since I watched much, if any, commercial television.
I do get those annoying pop-up ads from time to time when I visit websites and, of course, Facebook loves to “suggest” products I “need” in my timeline.
But I’m really not exposed to a lot of advertising or images that scream, “You are not enough!”.
Even so, that’s often the way I feel.
Somehow I’ve swallowed the lie that the only way I can be worthy of love and even breath is to be “all that I can be”-whatever THAT means. I need to have the right exercise regimen, the cleanest home, the healthiest food, a morning quiet time with my Bible and praise music, the perfect filing system for all the random papers I have stuffed in boxes, a tidy closet, and a day filled with meaningful activity that produces either income or social change.
All this time stuck at home has served to point out the many ways I fall short of those standards.
We’ve lived in this house for twenty-two years which is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. It’s filled to the brim with memories and stuff and dusty corners where the furniture hasn’t been moved since we got here.
The kids were six through twelve the day we bought the place.
There’s been a lot of activity and growing within these walls and frankly, you can tell.
I need to paint but the idea of wiping off the last little marks of Dominic and his siblings made when they were all here and happy is overwhelming. I need to rearrange the things in what was once his room and make it more useful for when the kids come home to visit but that means I have to go through some drawers and stuff that haven’t been touched since he touched them and I’m not ready.
That’s just two of probably one hundred (literally!) things I could or should do.
What I’ve been doing instead is living through what I call my Season of Sorrow which runs from March through the end of May every year-all the “lasts” (last time I saw him, last time I hugged him) and all the “firsts” (the day he left for Heaven, his funeral) and ends with his birthday on May twenty-eighth.
I’ve learned that I’m no good at starting projects this time of year.
I’m doomed to leave them unfinished which becomes its own kind of condemnation.
But I still feel like I SHOULD be doing them.
I need to be gentle on myself.
That list of things to do is always going to be long. If I worked every day, all day for the rest of my life there would be things left unfinished.
I need to remember that how I loved and who I loved is the measure that really counts.
❤
I first shared this post a couple years ago when social media turned really mean and family dinner tables were transformed from generational bonding experiences into hate-filled battlegrounds.
I am saddened that this crisis and upcoming election has once again made us forgetful that our words matter. How I express my opinion matters.
There are real people attached to our Twitter feeds, Facebook profiles and Instagram followers.
❤
There may be some mamas that don’t drill this into their children but if there are, they don’t live south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Every time there was back and forth in the back seat or on the front porch and Mama overheard, we were told, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”
Read the rest here: If You Can’t Say Anything Nice….
Oh, how easy it would be to become bitter!
If I’m honest, part of me just wants to tell the world to “Get lost!”.
But the wiser part of me knows that’s neither a helpful nor healthy response to even this most awful burden of child loss.
Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament, we won’t know how to process pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate our spiritual lives instead.
~Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds Deep Mercy
Because my bitter spirit wouldn’t stop with me. It would spread like kudzu on an Alabama roadside.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/14/bitterness-is-a-terrible-legacy/
There will be plenty of frustrating moments, plenty of fearful moments and plenty of just plain ordinary moments during this unprecedented worldwide season of slowing down.
But there can be beautiful moments too. There are hidden blessings in this forced family togetherness.
Practice finding them, practice making them, practice wrapping them up in love and grace.
If you’ve been waiting for an excuse to get the best plates down from the top shelf I’d say today’s the day!
Make some memories.
❤ Melanie
I have never been a crystal and china kind of gal.
I got a few special pieces when my husband and I married, but most of the things in my home are durable and useful.
So I don’t have many things tucked away for special occasions.
I’m glad that when my kids were young we made even ordinary days special.
Read the rest herehttps://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/03/31/life-is-a-gift-celebrate-every-single-day/
Eternity is impossible for the human mind to grasp.
We talk about it even though we can’t really understand what it means because it’s so far outside our experience and imagination.
But it’s a fact and it matters.
The life I live on earth, made up of days, years and decades is but a blip on the screen of God’s eternal timeline.
Yet what I do here and now will ripple throughout forever.
Taking hold of that fact, clinging tightly to that truth can help me make choices that will make a real difference.
To win the contest you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best. An athlete goes to all this trouble just to win a blue ribbon or a silver cup, but we do it for a heavenly reward that never disappears.
I Corinthians 9:25 TL
I remember one particularly grueling semester in college. I had foolishly stacked five upper level political science classes on top of one another thinking that taking them together would be easier.
That was a dumb idea.
The end of semester assignments included 200 pages of written term papers along with essay tests and other random bits. For two weeks I fell asleep on my bedroom floor, pen in hand, legal pad underneath my head and surrounded by dozens of open books I used for reference.
After composing the papers, I had to type them, add footnotes and bibliography and deliver them. All back before computers and word processing programs made it easy and electronic!
Oh, how I wanted to give up and give in! I was certain that I was not going to make it. I just knew that my body or mind or both would give out before I completed the task.
But they didn’t and I did manage to make it through.
I was willing to put forth the effort and pay the price for a letter grade!
No one cares what I made on those essays. No one asks me about my college classes or grades. At 56 I can’t even remember what I wrote about.
Now I face a much more challenging task: Living without the companionship of one of my precious children. The “grade” I make on this effort has eternal impact.
This is the Valley of Weeping, yet Christ promises it will become a place of refreshing.
“When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of springs where pools of blessing and refreshment collect after rains!”
Psalm 84:6 TLB
I can’t see an end for this grueling work. There’s no “semester break” circled on my calendar.
But there will be an end to this toil and pain-just as surely as there was an end those many years ago.
As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. 2 Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God’s throne.
Hebrews 12:1-2
And the reward for faithfully completing this assignment is so much more valuable than a good grade.
Yet, my brothers, I do not consider myself to have “arrived”, spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ grasped me. My brothers, I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal—my reward the honour of being called by God in Christ.
Phillipians 3:12-16
This reward is eternal-a never-ending supply of God’s grace and love and joy that will overwhelm the toil and pain I’ve endured.
Reunion.
Redemption.
Restoration.
So while I wait, I encourage my heart with this truth:
We are cracked and chipped from our afflictions on all sides, but we are not crushed by them. We are bewildered at times, but we do not give in to despair. 9 We are persecuted, but we have not been abandoned. We have been knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our bodies the reality of the brutal death and suffering of Jesus. As a result, His resurrection life rises and reveals its wondrous power in our bodies as well. 11 For while we live, we are constantly handed over to death on account ]f Jesus so that His life may be revealed even in our mortal bodies of flesh.
2 Corinthians 4:8 VOICE
God invites me to join Him in the work He is doing.
Isn’t that mind-blowing?
He could announce the Gospel from the mountaintops or have angels declare it from the heavens, but He doesn’t.
He has ordained that these fragile bodies of ours, these fickle hearts, these often disobedient hands carry the Good News to the ends of the earth.
The God of Heaven entrusts me with His love, empowers me with His strength and commissions me as an ambassador of reconciliation to reach a world longing for reconciliation-with Him and with one another.
So when I look up and say, “I don’t have time”. He says, “Get your priorities straight.”
When I whine, “I don’t know what to do”. He says, “I’ve got that covered. Just look around and do what’s at hand.”
When I groan, “It won’t make a difference anyway”. He says, “Do you doubt the power of obedience to the Gospel to change the world?”
My life makes a difference.
Your life makes a difference.
Eternity is shaped, in part, by how we spend it. ❤
This post is the second in a series I began writing for a presentation I gave last Saturday entitled “Don’t Grow Weary In Doing Well: Making Kingdom Work a Priority”.
This is post is the third in a series I wrote for a presentation entitled “Don’t Grow Weary In Doing Well: Making Kingdom Work a Priority”.
If you want to read the first post, you can find it here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2020/02/07/today-is-a-gift/
The second is here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2020/02/11/life-has-limits-i-want-my-legacy-to-last/
❤
Not every soul lives to be “full of years”.
Some are snatched away when life has barely begun while others live a bit but not long enough. Even those whose lives span decades seem gone too soon for those left behind.
Dominic died just six weeks short of his twenty-fourth birthday.
My mother lived four days past her eighty-first.
We didn’t expect either of them to leave us when they did. Yet, here we are.
A day dawned that did not include them and there will be a sunrise that does not include me.
There is a limit to my opportunity to leave a legacy of love, of influence and of purpose to those who come behind. I want it to be one that lasts, that matters and that has eternal impact.
That’s why it matters how I spend my days.
Because days make up weeks which make up months, years and decades and then it’s over.
That doesn’t make me sad-because what comes next is more wonderful than what I have here-no matter how wonderful I think it is.
But it makes me thoughtful.
Paul reminds the Ephesians:
“Look carefully then how you walk!
“Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.”
~Ephesians 5:15-17 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
While the days are often long, the years are short.
I don’t get a “do over” but I can do better.
God has prepared good works for me to do. My responsibility is to look for them and to do them.
I LOVE these verses in Ephesians:
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 2:7-10 MSG
Do you hear what Paul is saying?
God saved us from sin and death. But that’s not all!
He saved us TO a life of loving service. And He’s already set the opportunities in place for us to simply take advantage of as we walk on in our lives!
I don’t have to go out of my way to find them. I simply have to offer up myself as a living sacrifice and trade my will for His.
God never wastes anything.
Not even suffering.
I’ve served in some capacity within my local Body for my entire adult life. But when Dominic died, I found I was so broken I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to step back, nurse my shattered heart and try to heal.
But about a year and a half after he left for Heaven, I felt God nudging me to try again.
So I did.
I started sharing my struggle, my faith and my experience in daily blog posts.
What began as kind of grudging obedience to God’s prompting has become a lifeline for me and for other bereaved parents.
It takes time. It takes effort. It takes commitment.
And there are days when I don’t want to do it.
But I’m convinced it’s one of the works God prepared beforehand that I should do.
There will be a day when my work will cease and the book will be closed on my earthly life.
Until then, I will strive to remember what Jesus told His disciples: “While it is daytime, we must do the works of the One who sent Me. But when the sun sets and night falls, this work is impossible.” (John 9:4 VOICE)
What has God equipped and called YOU to do?
What experiences in your life, gifts and talents, opportunities is God weaving together so You can do the good works He’s placing in your path?
Someone needs you to share YOUR story.
Someone needs you to help them connect THEIR story to God’s story.
Look around, they’re right in front of you. ❤
This post is the second in a series I began writing for a presentation I gave last Saturday entitled “Don’t Grow Weary In Doing Well: Making Kingdom Work a Priority”.
If you want to read the first post, you can find it here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2020/02/07/today-is-a-gift/
❤
A few days ago I wrote about how panic is always just a breath away for those of us who have suffered loss.
Like a friend of mine recently said, “We are branded. GRIEF is burned into our hearts and we are never the same.”
So how to live this altered life?
How can I manage that emotional tension that saps energy and strength from my heart, mind and body?
Our family has adopted some practical protocols that help.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/01/08/practical-protocols-to-mitigate-panic-after-loss/
Toss that rock in the water and see what happens.
It’s impossible to keep the ripples from moving farther and farther from the point of impact.
And even though I can’t see it, my casual toss has changed the environment of the pond in ways it would not have been changed without my action.
Our lives are like that- we touch other people every day and rarely know how our brief brush may ripple through their lives for years or even eternity.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/01/04/ripples/
I can’t tell you how many people try to tell me what Dominic’s “legacy” is. They extol his positive virtues and comment on how many lives he touched in his short 23 years.
They want me to be consoled with the intangible, relational, immeasurable impact of his life on the lives of others.
Yet they continue to live as if their OWN legacy will be determined by the amount of stuff they acquire or the size of their retirement accounts or the money they leave behind for others to spend.
It can’t be both.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/12/22/whats-your-legacy/
![How A Phone Call a Day [Almost] Keeps the Panic Away](https://thelifeididntchoose.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/hey-are-you-ok-memes-com-16222478.png?w=500)
